Average age on the street was probably twenty four. The wonder was that a city of a million could have so many young people rich enough to fill the restaurants and bars and art movie houses. Who were they? Where did their money come from?
The street was lined with old brick apartment houses that once were filled with single moms on welfare and working students and older people who had lived their whole lives on the street.
The old man and the old woman were among the last of them. They looked in bewilderment at these wholesome, apple cheeked children accompanied by their water bottles who now patrolled the neighborhood.
``Who are they? Where do they come from?'' the old woman asked.
``I don't know, but they got money,'' the old man answered.
The street did have another aspect, mainly out of view. The Other People also lived in its environs. The people who slept in the shrubbery concealing the synagogue and the episcopalian church. The people who bought sweet wine at the one convenience store that clung to business in the shadow of the upscale grocery.
The old couple still had their apartment, though the rent was almost beyond them. Social Security and Medicare did not quite close the circle for them. They were austere people. Their lives had been bleak and hard with few pleasures, and now in their last years they could not afford to turn on the heat in their apartment.
``These kids have all this money,'' the man said, ``and we got none. There's got to be something we could do about it.''
``Like what?''
``Like I don't know.''
They were sitting in a pocket park watching young people with well behaved dogs outside Starbucks.
``well you know I got that banjo...''
``You haven't played that in years.''
``Don't mean I can't still play it. I got a tambourine too from when I was in the Salvation Army band. You could bang on it. We could sing hymns...remind them kids where they're going.''
And so they did.
Erect and poker faced they sat on stools outside the convenience store and they sang the hymns of their youth.
They sang without joy and the woman banged the tambourine like an automaton.
And people avoided them.
Except one or two who threw a couple of coins their way and wondered how they'd ended up in such a place.